


Sugary Simulacrum

by ScissorSheep



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (Trust me it's a fix it I promise), (Will dies a lot but he lives at the end), 5th circle of hell, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Character Study, Dante's Inferno refferences, Episode Fix-It: s02e13 Mizumono, Gift Exchange, Graphic Description of Corpses, Groundhog Day, Heavy Angst, M/M, Please head my warnings I don't want to scar anyone, Season/Series 02, Seriously no one under 18 needs to be reading this, This was supposed to be a Christmas gift, i suck, mature themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 04:38:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14324745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScissorSheep/pseuds/ScissorSheep
Summary: "A harsh red light peeks out from behind a triangle shaped opening in the blackness surrounding him, creating a strange silhouette whose colors bleed out in every which direction.That was definitely new.The other doorways leading to different memory fragments had been bright white lights, shedding a sallow and alarming sense of dread and somberness. The emotions radiating heavily from this opening were almost completely masked by an intense radiating heat. Akin to walking through a burning building. This doorway, cloaked in brilliant red light, was reminiscent of the kind of light used for film development. There was nowhere to go but forward, and with each step closer, Will could feel his skin start to bubble and boil."~~~The 5th circle of Dante's Inferno, reserved for the wrathful, and the sullen. (A Mizumono AU fix it)





	Sugary Simulacrum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DuchessofYork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuchessofYork/gifts).



> So this was supposed to be a Christmas gift for DuchessofYork as a part of a gift exchange but I suck eternally at meeting deadlines and once I had an idea I couldn't stop writing. Hopefully, this was worth the wait! I am so sorry it took forever! I put so much time and effort into this so I apologize if I missed any typos. (This is the single longest chapter I have ever written)
> 
> BEFORE ANYONE READS THIS PLEASE READ THE TAGS, I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR SCARING ANYONE WHO DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE GETTING INTO.
> 
> For anyone left, enjoy :D

The crystal-like snowdrops that fall against the ground, act as heaven’s shield. A cacophony of bone white inlaid across the land. The infinite and shining gate to greater and better heights. The freedom from the grim and grotesque. Ultimate apogee to a tired soul. The balm soothing across brittle and bleeding wounds ripped and sundered quivering flesh. 

There is no respite for the wicked. 

It’s a jarring reminder that this world is the farthest thing from the desolation laid before the pure land. Un-trampled and undisturbed before chaos ran amok through the woods. Strange, mostly due to the fact that snow hadn’t been present in the actual events that took place. They had been misplaced, deposited into a seemingly new rendition with relatively the same results. 

Time had flowed much faster here. The ground was bleeding beneath its bleat skin long before its crispy coat fell. The only mare against the blank land was the deep comically red blood smattered in every which direction beneath the steps of Will Graham’s house. 

They instead, in this rendition, were playing atop the chessboard engraved on the forest floor of Wolf Trap. 

Nothing had changed. And yet everything had changed. Their dinner was set, with Hannibal cooking in a familiar (yet unaccustomed to his own culinary energy) kitchen. 

Will it seemed had instead in this plane, invited chaos right to his doorstep. 

There was no police involvement; no warrant for his arrest had passed through the FBI just yet. Something must have happened to Jack for him to have come blind. Similar yet apart these worlds continued to prove as the scene before him progressed. 

This destiny was fated to bring them to the very moment that should have come to pass. Laying at the foot of the gutted beast. There was very little recognizable human matter that belonged to Jack. Everything that was him lay toxic across the snow outside. 

It went so smoothly, Will hadn’t been prepared for the desecration and destruction of his friend. If Hannibal had his way entirely, Jack would seldom be a friend in Will’s mind. It was too late to take back the chaos he’d enabled. 

Will inevitably took to the woods, tears streaming down his face, unable to cope with Jack’s actual departure. Hannibal was not far behind. By proxy of Will’s heavy breathing, his focus became a blurry background, this sensation coating his every molecule was impartially thanks to his flight or fight response. Adrenaline could only carry a person so far, however, and Will’s legs would only carry him so far before Hannibal inevitably reached him. He’d be sacrificed to the belly of the beat, have every molecule of his body crunched with sinewed, experienced jaws. 

The woods are vast and intimidating but held not even a token to the potent waft of Will’s unique blood creating stained glass pools of red against the snow. 

It would take a severely incapacitated version of Hannibal to be thwarted in such a menial plan of action. Something in which Hannibal was definitely not. Not when he’d come so close to everything he’d ever craved in life. 

It took a total of two minutes of hardcore running before Hannibal was able to catch Will by the collar and send them both tumbling into the snow. The glint and flash of silver glittered stark across the near-blank canvass. The tears streamed heavily between their two glassy and blurred eyes. Blue orbs found deep maroon and with each passing second, the snow beneath them wetted with their own salty cries. Their tears fall, intermingling with the chemical makeup of the snow, melting a new layer as they descended through the emotional barriers. Desperate to catch a glimpse of the other's truth. 

It’s Hannibal that breaks the silence. 

“Time did reverse, Will. The teacup that I shattered did come together.” 

Hannibal’s breath is hot, his words shaking as they fill the nimble space between them. His words are charged with a blistering intensity the likes of which ricochets through the cold. Settles in the pits of their stomachs. They share a few shaky breaths as Will’s view of the glittering destructive knife fades from his peripheral. Will’s world shakes, understanding this blade is different than the one Hannibal wielded against Jack. Hannibal was going to dirty this blade with his blood. Taint the silver, most likely to never use again. 

Except… this knife Will had seen at least thousands of times at this point. It was the same one that inlaid a smile across his abdomen. It’s no use, Hannibal wouldn’t hear any remark threatening to break this destiny. 

“Do you understand? A place was made for all of us, together.” Hannibal’s voice shakes, the low tremor reverberating through Will’s chest, before evaporating against the heat of his inner organs. “I wanted to surprise you. And you... You wanted to surprise me…” If Will could only move, break the fourth wall, change this somehow. 

It’s odd to be a beast and feel so caged. It makes Will less reluctant to lash out in return to the helplessness. 

And then it happens. 

The searing heat, doesn’t start from his belly in this instance, but rather cascades from his heart, blisters and explodes with a foreign ferocity. It masks for just a moment the physical pain that blossoms from his belly. 

Hannibal’s blade this time sinks in against Will’s sternum, and jaggedly, with a furious strength, cuts downwards, drawing a horizontal leaking line in his chest cavity. With the cavernous opening beckoning him, Hannibal dips his hands into the delicate insides of the man he’d tried so hard to enlighten and shower with praise. It seems the divine cosmos wish to subject Will to further pain in this world. Hannibal has every piece of Will he could ever need. 

“I let you know me… See me…” 

The silence explodes with Will’s ravaged screams, his breath hitching and turning into grotesque spurting inhales. Will’s precious inner workings, his organs slowly blend up into an unrecognizable pulp in the cavernous opening, completely at the mercy of his once psychiatrist. Hannibal’s hands twist deeper, kneading and muddling everything in his wake. It’s only when he starts to pull and pluck ruby vital jewels out of Will, that the pain starts to ebb and sear through his nerves. Everything hurts so much, yet nothing hurts at all. Will knows the feeling of utter betrayal coursing through Hannibal at this moment unlike any other. A profound wave of understanding envelops his entire being.

He’d heard once as a child, that forgiveness was almost akin to falling in love. But that had been when his bastard mother abandoned him with his drunken excuse for a father. Remarkable to think pain could be so freeing. Will hadn’t so much as grazed the thought of his childhood in the last 10 years.

“I gave you a rare gift, but, you didn’t want it.” 

“D-didn’t….I?” It’s a faint whisper, and nothing more. He can’t bear to look at Hannibal, too afraid to see the emotions smattered across his blood-smeared face, too afraid that the exposure of their shared vulnerabilities will simply change far too much. Hannibal does not share these sentiments.

The icy prickles of Hannibal’s breath caress Will’s lips in just the perfect way. It’d be simple to summon the need, to try and move against the limitations of this experience. He could try to persuade Hannibal. But he knows this world has plans of its own and any attempt to break from this scene is futile. Will is far too close to savoring the temptation he’d preyed upon in his sanguine dreams. 

That doesn’t make the realization that this had been a long time coming any less freeing. This festering seed of Will’s, which had been far too eager for proper nourishment, seems as though it wishes to kill Hannibal with how much nourishment it now has. This feeling explodes within Will’s desecrated body alongside each and every cry that trembles through decimated flesh. Will wishes he could take it all back and leave with Hannibal. This outcome, however, it would seem was the fate destiny had woven for them in this universe. Nothing more, and nothing less. The possibilities are far too painful to divulge in even in the safety of fantasy.

This would always be the point they would return to. The elegant horror of such a relationship shouldn’t beckon Will in the manner it does. But love is so often fickle, fragile, and eager to heal and pull together after abuse.

His physical body is screaming, but alongside it Will’s mind is also howling, metaphysically reaching out for the glittering heavens. To salvage or destroy, Will left the choice to fate. Such profound misery one endures before they consider a heaven. If Will could laugh, he would out of irony and frustration. But it’s too much, and this body is weak. Will simply fades into the quiet of the stream, body far too broken to fight. In post-mortem, his body trembles and wracks with every new organ displaced and squished. 

The proper realization that this was always set into the fabric of this reality does little to curb the aggressive reactions flowing through his very veins. His blood boils at this particular rendition of their end. While his physical body is clearly nothing but viscera in the snow, Will finds himself standing across the field from a vantage point now. He’s glimpsing through the looking glass, rather than through broken blue orbs carved into the scattered corpse’s skull. Grief, love, anguish, and the pure embodiment of the deadly sin itself: Rage paints vivid bright strokes behind his closed eyelids. 

How dare Hannibal put them through this? How dare he fall so fucking in love with the man who’d singlehandedly dismantled and yet rebuilt his life? 

Damn Hannibal and his clearly trepid emotions. 

It’s only fitting that Hannibal consumes him in this world, he supposes. From Will’s observation point it’s clear that no action of his own will influence anything in this glass bubble of a memory. The thought to influence and change long passes as he watches Hannibal who is in a deep rage. Hannibal’s lips spread across soft entrails kissing them before he disentangles Will’s heart from the messy insides of recently living flesh. Will watches Hannibal’s beast consume his once beating heart with large and starving mouthfuls. This Will thinks, is the seductive darkness that resides in Hannibal’s very DNA. It’s beautiful in a self-deprecating way, the manner in which viscera and an almost crayon like red blood spray across the frozen soft land. 

Strangely, Will feels a very unwelcome pulse of excitement race down his spine. The rush of adrenaline and dopamine floor him, his knees tremble and ache… among other things. His thoughts wander to each physical body that had met its demise in his journey so far. Will had to wonder if he was truly bound by the limits of his human flesh or not. Existing in a metaphysical realm really wasn’t really the way he’s used to spending his spare time.

Will has little time for further reflection, however, the very earth that Will stands on begins to shake and tremor and he can’t help but feel a euphoric sense of relief. It does little to aid his physical ailment. He needs to leave this world, the thoughts and images spurned in this reality are too alien to consider. Will wants to run away, and leave this plane behind. His arousal is far too familiar yet not at the same time. It’s too much to delve into. Frankly, Will doesn’t want Hannibal to be right, which is completely irrational.

Randal Tier had proven Hannibal correct a very long time ago. That seduction, the heavy craving to rip someone piece from piece and artistically display desecrated flesh up for scrutiny was the driving nail embedded nine inches deep in his skull long before he joined the police force. 

The very scenery before him starts to splinter and break like shards of a broken mirror. Everything shatters violently a, before pooling into a silver reflective lake. Will is greeted with the blackest ebony void, the same one he’s banished to before the next memory is loaded up for his viewing pleasure. 

It’s almost time for a new film reel of the same heartbreaking separation to flow like fluid underneath his eyelids. His glassy eyes act as a projector. It would seem as though Will was destined to live through each fleshy incarnation of himself, while metaphysically viewing it through the eyes of an outsider. The consequences of his original choice, reared up in all forms, and here he was not only a survivor (if he truly survived in his own realm) but forcibly subjected to millions of the same wrong choices from different parallel spaces. Had he even lived in the first place through his own debacle? He’d read so many stories about hellishly living through an afterlife to repent so similar to this benign plane.

What deity he’d managed to piss off and incite this hellish circle of a curse from, he was unsure. At this point he’d reckon the big man upstairs had some involvement, but Will had never been in touch with religion. Ironic since he found himself praying to heaven not but a moment ago. Madness truly causes strange choices. Slowly but surely, Will could feel the almost same madness his encephalitis had caused, rearing out towards the forefront of his jigsaw mind during his voyage.

If he were to somehow continue through this circle of hell, Will feared this madness deeply. It was simply a recipe for failure. Perhaps Will was indeed in hell, at this point would it seem that outlandish compared to everything he’d been subjected to recently? There was nothing else conceivable to possibly explain his current situation. 

Fate it seemed wanted nothing more than to expose Will to each and every consequence his betrayal had snowballed into. If there was ever a universe in which he’d embraced Hannibal and run away with him, Will found himself desperately yearning the choice he’d robbed himself of. If he had the power to insert himself and incite change in any which universe, if he could just grab handfuls of Hannibal and embrace their future together, everything would fall back into place the way it should have. 

Abigail would have lived, and they would have gone together as a family. Will already knows that they’d seek refuge in Florence. Visit the chapel decorated with a skull engraved in the floor. The center of Hannibal’s mind palace. It’s useless now to wish in hindsight and if previous encounters with Hannibal proved anything to him, it would be a highly unlikely scenario to find himself in the ‘right’ choice path. This wasn’t the fairy tale ending. None of these glimpses were. They were simply desolate and violent reminders. Will would take it all back, if only he had the ability to do so. Wishing on a fairy tale now, did him little good. 

The first couple of truths Will tried to speak with Hannibal, he learned that his purpose was to simply be an observer. Nothing more, and nothing less. Will was simply a wandering traveler, leaving puzzle pieces of his sanity behind with each new wrong choice. Consequently living through the cosmic radiation of his first wrong choice. It seemed to ensnare all possible outcomes. 

Now Will wasn’t entirely sure what his purpose was here. His destiny it seemed now revolved around viewing alternate versions of himself fight, kill, and be killed by Hannibal. Almost as if there was a lesson to gain from the carnage. 

Could this be hell? This looping madness a product of wandering about aimlessly through time? The last thing Will had remembered before finding himself in this apocrypha, had been the stinging blade of Hannibal and clutching desperately onto his surrogate daughter. Death had superstitions surrounding it very similar to this alternating reality kaleidoscope. Would he even be aware of death? Thrown into a void and wandering forever seemed to be something that happened without a warning sign.

With each new reality, different truths had come to pass. It was absolutely unfathomable to consider the possibility of the existence of any single solution to break the cycle. Something told him if he didn’t start piecing things together, or figuring out a way to at the very least not let his emotions run rampant, ultimately this cycle will destroy him. Perhaps death had seized him after all, and punished him to a realm of unending madness. 

What happened to his dogs? Friends? Ha, if you could even call them friends. Alana was weary around him, tolerating at best, and Jack? Of course Jack would mourn the loss of his right hand, perhaps take on the guilt like Miriam Lass. But Will had no true friends to mourn him. Abigail was long gone the moment his hand slipped from her gapping neck. His departure would have little rebound on the world as a whole.  
The one person that Will could fathom his departure affecting, was the very same man who’d woven them so tightly together.

Everything inevitably seemed to stem from Hannibal. Because of course it did. Everything that had come to pass since meeting Hannibal had been a consequence or a result of something set into motion by someone whom he’d trusted so greatly. Will hardly recognized this new version of Hannibal. Though if honesty does tell, that’s not entirely true and Will knows it. From the very beginning, Will knew Hannibal was different. Their chemistry and bound was seductive enough to ignore the bad and embrace the good. He’d known from the moment Hannibal was nearly elbow deep in the back of the ambulance massaging an almost murder victim’s organ into pumping fresh blood.

Will has very little time to further reflect on the matter however, and at the crux of unraveling the truth, his thoughts are stolen by what unfolds before his eyes. The world suddenly has light around him, and in front of him. A harsh red light peeks out from behind a triangle shaped opening in the blackness surrounding him, creating a strange silhouette whose colors bleed out in every which direction.

That was definitely new. 

The other doorways leading to different memory fragments had been bright white lights, shedding a sallow and alarming sense of dread and somberness. The emotions radiating heavily from this opening were almost completely masked by an intense radiating heat. Akin to walking through a burning building. This doorway, cloaked in brilliant red light, was reminiscent to the kind of light used for film development. There was nowhere to go but forward, and with each step closer, Will could feel his skin start to bubble and boil. 

But again, there was no way to go but forward. In hindsight, this blistering heat should have acted as a barrier, a foreboding glimpse to the hell he’d endure by stepping through the threshold. This next memory held demons seldom explored, and If Will possessed this future insight, he would have stayed in the void for an eternity. 

Will would come to discover several things in this next frozen reality.

One was the fact that the ex-profiler, in his own plane of existence had indeed been dispatched at the length of Hannibal’s blade. The second epiphany would be the fact that he was sent to wander through Dante’s 5th circle of hell for the rest of eternity, reserved for the wrathful and sullen. The third, was the fact that He’d been granted a chance, after years and years of wandering aimlessly. The fourth would be learning Hannibal had also met death’s end in the physical realm, he’d rotted away in the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane. A very suiting death, and lackluster in karmic payback for the hundreds of lives bleeding at the end of the Chesapeake Ripper’s Scythe. 

These memories were simply doors leading further into the circle. This next memory would be the ultimate test and it would be the last, but this would soon be brought to his attention. Beauty shines at the darkest of times they say.

Will steps through the strangely lit opening into a large metal room with reinforced steel on all sides. Immediately Will is filled to the brim, overflowing with foreign, benign emotions. He’s drowning in it, surrounded by the constant heavy weight in the cavity of his chest. Fear pierces, and swallows his flesh completely. Will wants nothing more than to return to the dark way space, its depth beckons, calls to him. But the threshold he’d just stepped through had vanished. 

At the far end of the encapsulated room there is a small window with heat resistant glass peeking out from a bolted metal door. The window is half covered by a steel sliding plate. Will wants to move towards this door, seek a way out, but his muscles lose every ability to move freely on command. This memory it seemed would start here. Will would be subjected to this reality, held captive in a version of his own body. He stands nearly stark still, muscles tensed and aching as if he’d been in a physical altercation not moments ago. 

The feeling of cold hard hands against Will’s neck startles him; the cold sting of something biting into his fat and penetrating through his neck muscles sends shock wave after shock wave of adrenaline through his system. Will sinks to his knees in the chamber, the metal creaking ominously the moment his knees hit the ground. Accompanying the icy prick is the warm and sudden flush of a strong sedative flooding through his veins, infecting his senses. His skin flushes bright red, his vision blurs. Unable to support himself, Will collapses on his side, clutching his neck weakly. An immediate animal biological reaction meant to protect his carotid artery. 

The gushing glittering mess of blood, a thick arterial spray could cause was something he’d desperately hoped was not prewritten into this plane. 

A dull shine catches his attention, calling from above its perch in the ceiling. There, coiled above his head are small openings in the ceiling, cylindrical in nature. The air seems to permeate with the dangerous scent of gasoline. Perhaps the fear of the moment was simply cultivating paranoia? His lips part shakily when it dawns on him. This is far from a laughing matter. 

He’s inside an industrial grade oven. The slightest of movements catches Will’s attention, ocean blues desperately dancing across the room for any sign of life. He catches the slight silhouette of a man cascading through the shadows nearly indiscernible and Will knows he will not be leaving this room alive. Crystallized tears plop against the floor with every heaving breath he takes, through blurry tear stained eyes he sees Hannibal’s outline. 

Will wants to scream. Beg Hannibal to leave. Beg him to turn around so that they don’t have to lock themselves up in an altercation yet again. The thought of Hannibal being subjected to the flaming jets above was almost worse than the thought of facing them alone.

“That injection will not kill you Will, simply paralyze you. You’ll still be able to feel pain.” Hannibal starts, his voice strangely even and cold while circling Will slowly. It feels wrong and impersonal, unlike previous memories, Hannibal seemed the most detached here than anywhere else in time. 

“You set blazes to Freddie Lounds in an effort to gain my trust. She met a fiery demise, cloaked in gasoline and set ablaze for the lies her journalism spread. Much like a wild fire in a dead wood.” Hannibal mummers, face stoic and unyielding. Despite this outward person suit demeanor, Will could see Hannibal’s hands trembling at his side. Perhaps his earlier observation was incorrect. If he died inside this oven, and not personally by the hands of Hannibal, truly it would be impersonal.

Something in Hannibal’s voice tells a different story. There is much Will is unsure of.

“Do you know where we are Will? Do you know what this box is I’ve placed you in? Do you believe these jets will turn on and burn us both to cinders? You’re immeasurably intelligent; surely you understand the gravity of your situation.” It’s almost as though Hannibal had read his mind.

“Muskrat Farms…?” Will questions, but it’s more rhetorical then anything. “You subdued my will to flee… Snuffed out any hope I’ve ever felt…” Will takes a heaping gulp of breath before braving his next sentence, “You’ve helped Margot I’d assume. Is this her gift to you? Or have you taken a liking to licking Mason’s boots?” 

“I would heavily consider your choice of words dear Will. My compassion for you is not infinite.” Hannibal is deflecting, hands rubbing together in a rare display of indecisiveness. He clicks his tongue harshly once, as though thinking through a million different pathways at once. It’s as though his person suit is shredding with each passing minute. And it is abundantly clear the cause lies with Will himself. 

Hannibal has never dropped his mask this low before. The glimpse of the beast beneath the mask eviscerated into pieces is a sight that certainly will remain embedded in the various trenches of Will’s brain. On the outside, someone unfamiliar with Hannibal would be unable to pick out any change, but to Will, Hannibal was breaking. 

Will has never seen Hannibal so physically conflicted.

“Do you understand what this means for you Will? Do you understand this as well as the euphoria you felt when the ortolan slid down your throat? Does this feel as crushing? Knowing you’d seduced and stolen from me my affection?” Hannibal’s voice is hardly above a whisper, he crouches down, kneeling to level himself with Will’s ocean eyes. 

“You’ve taken everything from me!! Hannibal, you sentenced me to a hospital for the criminally insane!! You pinned the murder of our surrogate on my shoulders! Then you… truly ripped her away!! After dangling her so delicately within my grasp. How am I supposed to move on from any of this!! You’ve ruined my career, my sanity! Ripped out my heart and twisted it until the muscle fibers popped liked bubbles! You’ve created an alter in your mind dedicated to my suffering! I will never be able to look at this world the same ever again Hannibal.” Will is hardly through, but the words refuse to leave his mouth, his lips are quivering and coated in salty ocean tears. Their much more pleasant jovial times are over. 

This was always destined to happen, they had become so inseparable, the collapse of one, meant the collapse of both. Speaking the truth after so long was creating unspeakable fizzles of envy. Will was speaking the words he’d always wanted, through a different puppet. Too much was left unsaid, unshed. This envy was violent, ripping voraciously through tender flesh, were it would remain simmering and festering. Just like everything between them. It would seem their heavily coated word play would simply be completely out of reach. He had nothing to return to after all, in his heart he knew nothing but a corpse awaited him at the end of this hellscape.

Considering Hannibal had been his former psychiatrist, they sure had a unique way of miscommunicating. 

“I was trying to enlighten and free you! You and I, Will no matter how much you deny it, will always be woven together. A finite fabric against the flow of time. Do you understand that? Your life was re-written the moment you and I met. I’ve done nothing for you that wasn’t to better you. You had plans that led you astray; I’d underestimated your bond with Uncle Jack. Is that were I went wrong? Persuaded by the festering seedling of what could be eloquent black forests of the finest roses?” Hannibal’s voice wavers, he leans in closer to Will, their foreheads connecting, eyes locked together. 

“Will, the meat you served to me belonged not from the flank of Freddie Lounds. I smelled her scent on your skin the night I’d asked you to leave with me.” Hannibal continues, voice sullen and void of its normal tremendous flourish, he makes to stand. 

“How can you expect me to accept you Hannibal? How was I supposed to know your contingency pawn was Abigail!?” Will is screaming, his blood filled with a hot rage of a thousand burning suns, it was as if the oven jets had already started to cook his skin. Hannibal yielded not to Will’s voice, but instead with his back turned strode towards the bolted door. He remained facing the cool metal. When he speaks again his voice echoes across the room in irregular wave patterns. 

If Will concentrated enough, he’d reckon the waves were visible, scarlet red as they buoyed across the sea of tension between them. 

“I’d told you enough!! You who has always been able to pick up on the strangest of details! I’d hoped that the consequences would fade in the light of the place I created for the both of us!” Hannibal’s voice wavers, his head bows visibly, emotions threatening to peel his dignity from tanned skin.

“YOU SENT ME TO PRISON ON MURDER CHARGES HANNIBAL!! FOR THE MURDER OF ABIGAIL!!! THE GIRL WE’D FOUGHT SO HARD TO SAVE!! YOU KILLED HER HANNIBAL!” The paralyzing agent is moving through his system faster with each furious beat of his heart. Will has reached the end of trying to reason his way with Hannibal. It was apparent Hannibal intended to murder him here, this finite event would be etched forever into their shared past, and no amount of the good times would ever outweigh this betrayal. So be it then. 

After all this was a prewritten script. 

May death come to his body swiftly, kiss its voracious breath deep within his lungs, and infect his core with the fate he longed to spread to others. No amount of denial could bleat the desire from beneath his skin. 

“I’d intended to separate you from anything that would prevent you from seeking the truth you’ve kept hidden from yourself since the days before you joined the police force. Your mind was already lost to me. I’d simply failed to realize this. Your true beauty, the seed within your heart I’ve cultivated and nurtured was so bright. But then you tore that away from me.” It’s useless to try and ignore the fat tears raining across battered skin. The harsh quality of Hannibal’s voice is symbolic; it bears an eclectic resemblance to Will’s own timeline. Hannibal slips a rusted key through a small slot in the bolted door, the creaking resounding scrape of metal on metal ricochets through the oven walls. 

And Will knows, he knows now that this is his end. The thought rockets through Will, creates electrical storms across each minutia point in his soft tissue, lighting and igniting every nerve in his body. 

The door slams shut behind Hannibal, and there is brief moment of silence, stillness. As though the world had to take a second to load its grand finale. 

The first noteworthy change happens when the harsh and dripping stench of gasoline permeates through the air with the suddenness of a stampede. Followed close behind are the harsh roaring sounds of the oven jets turning on. Then the red glorious flames are freed from their hatches, they desperately fill the space completely, chemically fueled and unpredictable. A searing wall of flames encases Will’s body within what feels akin to lava. At least what he’d imagine the sensation to feel like of course. 

Above the seething jets of fire come the melted and gurgling desperate cries of Will. It’s all he can do besides grappling against the metal floor, the paralytic agent is soft enough through his veins movement is again possible. Not that it does him much good, each and every time Will lifts his skin from the floor, it rips and leaves behind a thick coat of crisped skin and muscle tendons. His clothes catch ablaze, acting as a wick to the body fat beneath his dermis. It’s tremendously difficult to breathe. The air smells of death, peppered with the harsh and screaming wails pouring eclectically from Will’s split lips. He screams Hannibal’s name over and over again, coughing pathetically against the thick cloud of smoke billowing through the air and out of the box through a vent. It’s enough airflow to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning.

It becomes too difficult after a while to speak even with wafts of fresh air flowing in, Will’s cheek melts against the super-heated floor, it burbles and flutters frying in a marbled pattern with each air bubble seeking escape through his flesh. Eventually as the flame engulfs his body deeper, the outer layer of Will’s skin peels and cracks, the layer of fat is so heated it seeps from his insides like puss from a pimple before igniting and fueling the fire further.

It’s over almost as fast as it had begun. The intense all-encompassing pain fades to the recesses of Will’s mind, and he’s free to wander about the room unaffected by the flame. This new metaphysical state of being is extremely useful now; it’s immune to any further action or consequence of this world. Will watches in a stomach splitting sense of fascination as his once occupied body experiences thermal decomposition. It’s disgusting, horrifying, and the stench of burning flesh causes him to dry heave. 

Will has plastered himself against the front wall of the oven, desperate to block out the putrid sight of his rotting corpse decomposing rapidly under the intense heat. It’s hard to think about anything beyond his current situation. Time becomes a silly and fickle thing; he sits and waits in this box, dry heaving, and waiting. 

The fire lasts for around six and a half hours, before finally dwindling away.

Will is not whisked away to a new reality. Typically the blank space he visits between each new reality is quick to extract him. Evidently something had broken the cycle; Will would be relieved if it weren’t for the fact that hours after the fire had long since been extinguished he still remained. 

Will refused to believe that this void of a place would be his infinite plane. Perhaps he’d be stuck here as reward for his journey, for finding the strength to go through whatever this sick and twisted rabbit hole fancied. It seemed he’d been shown everything, as far as this winding path of interchanging chaos could go. There was no lesson to absorb, no ultimate sacrifice and happy ending. This was no fairytale. There was no happy ending, no tragic reunion and second chances whispered softly in hopes of healing the past. If he was truly dead, there would be no escape beyond this void; the thought was far too crushing to even seriously consider.

He’s been left behind now by his once glistening safe haven, and abandoned by reality. 

Perhaps the better thought to occupy the simmering space with something other than its physical contents, was the most grandiose of all questions, yet somehow the most simplistic. 

Why? 

Why was he shown these realities? What did he stand to gain watching his and Hannibal’s deaths over and over so many times over? Their screams would play on loop inside his mind for years to come, however long his sanity permits in this abyss. Years, it felt as though years had passed already with Will hunched against the oven wall, skin radiating with the far faded heat of now cool metal. 

There had to be some sort of lesson this hellish circle was trying to show him. The dead body burnt to cinders not inches from his own disembodied presence made it extremely difficult to think of anything other than the absolute voracious horrors this world placed his body through. At the epicenter of it all though, Will knows in each new reality Hannibal is the sole cause of his multiple rainbow colored glass epitaph. Which was a result… of his own choice… 

How is there anything to learn from this maniacal, disjointed film real? After everything he’s been shown, after experiencing a thousand deaths, how dare he be expected to take anything away with a melting mind and piercing pangs of regret? 

To some extent perhaps some of their fates had been sealed by Will himself? He’d refused to even consider this. How could he? Hannibal had weaved him so tight into an impossible dream, the only way he saw fit for any anomaly to occur was to take Will’s flesh from him by force. His heart had been skinned of its outer most layers, fleshy fingers worming holes through the mess left behind. 

He knows that’s not entirely true however… some of these glimpses have done nothing but reiterate to him that this betrayal is very much two sided. Will played with Hannibal; lead him on with half identified feelings, played him like a fiddle to reveal his deepest and most innermost vulnerabilities; only to turn around and crush everything to dust beneath his boot.

Will’s self-reflection stops when the noise of the oven door creaking open and outwards reverberates through the sullen silence, the vibrations briefly rattling the surrounding metal before dispersing. Light spills forth from the outside world, blinding for just a moment, his ocean glass pupils acclimating to the ambient white halo. When his eyes finally adjust, a soft creamy skinned girl holds her hand outwards as an offering, a guide through hell and beyond, the shinning torch in the fog of a forest. The light at the end of the tunnel if you will. 

This girl smiles, her blue eyes expressive and brunette hair silky smooth. Will had seen her haunting face dancing through the carousel of his nightmares. 

Will knows at once with such a startling clarity; the truth. It’s nauseating to process, and forces fierce stinging tears to gush down his face. Each droplet gathers at the base of the cooling metal, testament to all the backwards lies and bent reality left behind. The truth he’d refused to believe as absolute, he cannot hide from it any longer, not with Abigail standing right in front of him.

“Ab-“He starts to say, but the girl’s soft fingertip gingerly traces his plump lower lip. The smile never leaves her face.

“I am the Abigail you want in this moment, not the Abigail you need me to be.” She starts; her voice is similar enough to the real Abigail, Will’s heart thuds headily with a paternal drumming beat. “You must understand in our true reality Will, you met with demise himself. You kissed from the lips of the devil, just as I touched hands with the devil.”

“I don’t understand…” Will croaks out, his voice cracking from disuse.

“Will, there is nowhere else to hide in that mind of yours. You are intelligent beyond measure. Hannibal killed the both of us that night, Will. The first step to recovery is acknowledging what you already knew.”

“I can’t… Just recover like nothing Abigail. Not after what he’d put us through…” Will whispers, his hand immediately reaching out for hers, he links their fingers together. He doesn’t want her to leave again.

“There is a great deal of anger you hold within yourself. There is no need for it Will. We’ve been through so much already. You’re trapped in a never ending circle here. Don’t you see? There is nowhere else for you to voyage. You can either come with me, have my gift to you go waste, or you can live life on the outside. Don’t you see what I’ve done for you?” She repeats softly, clenching tightly onto her surrogate father’s hand.

“Would you find it in your heart to forgive him and move on after everything? After the way he left us?” His voice trembles, face distraught and tear stained. The question is feeble in actuality; Will already knows the choice was made for them in the very finite fabric of humanity. Fate it seemed had made the decision glaringly obvious for them.

“Yes. I would. The beautiful darkness that lives in all of us Will, that’s the truth he wanted you to see. My time with him simply made me comfortable with all aspects of myself. We were destined to leave together, live a life far away from here. Don’t you understand what he tried to do for us?” Abigail smiles brightly at him, caressing his shaking hand with her thumb.

“He killed us Abigail. Left our remains to be picked off by ravenous vultures, and then fled into the night without us. Had I known you were with him… perhaps things would have been different…” Will’s voice cracks softly, he swallows thickly before continuing, “I wanted him to leave, I didn’t know you where there with him…”

“I caught a glimpse of the beast from the inside Will, and I loved what I saw. Hannibal and I lived in peace, as much as we could while waiting for you. You had both become my fathers… We couldn’t have left without you don’t you see that?” Her sweet voice lilts lower, almost as if in admonishment and exasperation at her surrogate parent.

“Of course I see that in this moment, Abigail I had ensnared him… Twisted the truth he’d desperately wished to be true…” 

“You fell in love with a man who could see the depth beneath your skin. He wasn’t trying to play house with us Will. He wanted us to flourish together as a family. Our beauty as a unit gave him hope.”

“Why are you telling me this now? It’s too late at this point! Abigail I couldn’t take any of this back even if I wanted to!!” Will steps into the open area and out of the oven. It shuts tight behind him.

“You understand I am giving you that chance don’t you? I can’t go with you for long. I will always come back to this place. I cannot lift you out of the places within yourself. That sequestered part of your mind I cannot touch, I cannot force that out of you Will, but I wish nothing for your happiness.” She sighs softly, “You can see him now, and you can touch his skin. That is why I am here, to take you to him. But Will, you have to be the one that chooses. You can either stay here, rot for eternity in the black void of the beyond. Or you can go with him, like we always wanted to.” Abigail untangles their hands, she steps towards Will, pulling him close towards her body in a warm embrace. 

“Abigail, I can’t just leave you here, I can’t lose you again.”

“Will, you must make peace with the darkness; you have done everything to run from. I cannot go with you for long. You need to let go of me, honor me by living the life we should have.” Abigail’s voice is still sweet, her smile blinding to Will. “Promise me you won’t eat from the pomegranate seeds again ok?”

Will tries to run after her, but his vision burns red hot before blurring. He can’t see her bright light in any direction. His chest aches with unsaid words. Will knows deep down he can’t choose her, but the pain of leaving her behind again surrounds his heart with thorns.

The black surrounds him, his mind made up.

When he comes to again a voice he hasn’t truly heard in years, floods through him, echoing through every cell in his body. It fills his veins with relief and hope, a hymn soon to be sung.

“You understand the choice you’ve made and the consequences of your actions? Do you understand the ramifications of your choices on our world Hannibal? Are you prepared truly to face him after the time you spent apart?” Abigail speaks softly, her tone confident and unyielding.

“Yes…” Hannibal’s voice is broken, disheveled and shaking. 

The two are standing in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by deep ebony. The night sky is illuminated and peppered with millions of stars sewn above their heads. There is a soft wind blowing blades of grass to and fro. They are surrounded by the unforgiving cold, shielded from the frost simply by warmth flooding through their connection. 

If Hannibal senses him, he makes no move to acknowledge him.

This place is unaccustomed to the time bend surrounding two foreign travelers, un-sodomized with their existence; blank white canvas fresh to wreak havoc upon. The air seems cleaner here.

“Will, come here.” Abigail’s voice travels with the wind, her hair whipping with the grass.

Will doesn’t need to be told twice, his feet are moving faster than his brain can tell his legs to move. Abigail waits patiently for him, her hand stretched outwards.

“I can’t stay here much longer. But you will be safe here. There is no one that should know either of your names. Please don’t leave a grotesque mark in this land without each other. You can’t continue without each other.” Abigail’s speaks softly, her hand twining with Will’s as soon as he’s within reach. She grasps Hannibal’s hand as well clutching her father’s hands close to her beating heart.

With a whisper of the wind Abigail is gone, leaving the two of them to their own devices.

The world is quiet around them, almost as if time itself is at a complete standstill. The silence is violently broken by a sob filling the space between the two star crossed lovers. Hannibal reaches for Will and pulls him into a desperate embrace.

“Don’t leave me please…” Hannibal’s voice is absolutely wrecked, and Will feels an almost unwelcome inner solace wash beneath his skin at the notion. To think that the almighty beast he’d pined after for far too long could be reduced to the same amount of utter anguish he’d felt the entire time they’d known each other is freeing. Will wants nothing more than to tell Hannibal everything. 

Hannibal doesn’t give him the chance.

“I lived through so many different renditions of that foolish night…” Hannibal starts, cradling Will as close to his body as possible, worried Will might evaporate into the thin air just as Abigail did.

“You would make the choice to leave with me each and every time Will… I saw glimpses of… everything that I’ve ever wanted from you… so tantalizingly close and so far away…” Hannibal’s voice is soft yet shattering against Will’s ear, cherishing their closeness. To have Will so close again felt like a nuclear explosion thrumming through and out of his chest cavity.

“I had no intention of dispatching you in that moment… I felt so much rage bubble up from under my skin and ravage my clear mind. I’d known that pure sense of emotion but one other time; when Misha was taken from me. To feel that emotion well up inside of myself was foreign… When I’d become who I am today, I had felt disconnected to such awful feelings…”

Will quivers in his arms, shaking with emotions long kept under lock and key far within the recesses of his broken mind. It’s almost too much to fathom any semblance of sorting through the trepid storm waging a desperate war in his chest cavity. Will wets his lips before speaking. “You still let them get the best of your judgement… You left without me, surrendered my body to the eternal void you’d always found so beautiful in your darkness before…” Will mumbles against the coarse facial hair trailing lightly down Hannibal’s neck.

“It was a grotesque miscalculation, one that infinitely plagued my every thought within the confines of my prison cell in Baltimore. Until my physical body broke down with the passage of time. Not a moment went by that I didn’t relive that night in my mind’s eye desperately wishing to reshape that evening. Through the looking glass you melted under my touch, went so willingly with me… and then reality would yank me into another universe, fate itself had bestowed what could have been on a silver platter.” With every word that passed Hannibal’s lips softly fluttered millimeters away from Will’s skin.

“I could do nothing in that void, but live vicariously through different much happier versions of ourselves. I wished nothing but for any of those truths to shatter the ultimate sin of that fated night in our own reality… I had come to the startling conclusion that I…” Hannibal’s voice wavers, his lips open with words that would not leave the confines of his complex mind.

It’s Will that breaches the silence this time.

“The same conclusion I had… Hannibal, I watched you kill me over and over trapped in a hellish groundhog day. The look on your face each time I slipped away from you… That will forever be burned into the fragile ridges of my mind. There was nothing I could do or change. Simply view everything from the side.” Will whispers, pulling back slightly from their embrace, desperate to see Hannibal’s face. “Despite that, I find myself drawn to you… Despite your abuse and misuse of my trust…” 

Will’s words brand deep through Hannibal’s skin, for a moment he’s speechless, vulnerable.

“I watched you take my hand, leave with me to wherever it is I wished. I had unknowingly become a slave to the emotions that plagued and infected every ounce of a past I left behind a very long time ago… I cycled through rage, desperation…” Hannibal takes a heaving breath, his eyes cast downwards, refusing to meet the ocean blue glass orbs desperately seeking contact; The mirror to his soul. Hannibal’s lips tremble before speaking again, “I had fallen so deep down the slope of affection for you I couldn’t climb out.”

“Hannibal, are you in love with me…?” Time itself does seem to stop yet again the question floating into the fabric of reality itself. Will steps away from their warm embrace completely, instead choosing to resting his palm against Hannibal’s cheek, reminiscent of the night everything changed for the both of them, yet different in its own right. It would seem empathy wouldn’t allow any other action, a paradox in and of itself against this blank canvass. The thought that years had passed between such wretched parallels would be more shocking if he hadn’t already known the truth.

“I had long since felt strong emotions for you Will, the magnitude of those feelings seemed to be the one factor I hadn’t allowed myself to consider, not until that night of course. I felt the life slip from your body and left when the FBI had cuffs against my wrists…”

“I need to hear you say it Hannibal… After everything can’t you drop the vague answers and leave them in the past..?” Will’s hand dropped with his words, face drooping with a creeping sense of regret. If Hannibal couldn’t admit to him after everything they’d been through would the madness continue?

“I don’t wish my emotions to be held above my heart as a weapon of mass destruction… You lead to the downfall of my own carefully crafted reality. You shattered that to bits and pieces Will. How can I know that giving the words truth now, won’t cause another butterfly effect? To show you these vulnerabilities is outside of any realm of comfort I managed to somehow maintain after all this time.” Hannibal’s eyes are as black as the night around him, Will can’t properly gauge Hannibal’s thoughts in this moment. He’s filled with many emotions, empathy running amok through their shared mirror.

“I don’t know if I can stay at your side knowing that something could happen again… I don’t know if what you did was out of pure rage, and rage alone. How can I trust something you can’t find the words to say as the truth? Can I trust you after this? Knowing that the truth will never pass your lips unless it’s covered by a thick blanket of denial?” Will takes a few steps backwards, and Hannibal immediately reaches out for him. 

“I don’t want you to leave my side, Will. By the graces of Abigail we’ve found ourselves here… I can’t bear to watch you leave me…” He reaches out for Will’s hand, but stops midair, his gaze locked onto the ground.

“Hannibal, I can’t keep playing these games with you!!” Will is shaking, a newborn sense of fury flooding through him. Of course in other realities Hannibal would always be most truthful. He stumbles backwards intending to leave, and falls into the blades of grass, his head reverberating with the impact. Hannibal is on him in a heartbeat, craning over Will with his hands caged on either side of his beloved’s head. Tears that are not Will’s fall freely onto his face, shirt, muddying the earth with their very existence; a sacrament to their new beginning, baptizing the soil with anguish despite being nothing but newborns in this reality.

“I can’t lose you again, Will. Everything that I did for us was consequence of the potent love I feel for you!” Hannibal’s hands are shaking with the effort of holding himself above Will. “I’ve been in love with you from the moment you whispered through your chrysalis that killing Garret Jacob Hobbs felt just.” Hannibal trails off, his voice a reflection of the wind picking up around them.

“I’ve wanted you by my side from the moment you showed up clean shaven and demanding the resumption of your therapy with me…” Once the truth is spoken, Hannibal can’t seem to stop.

“I’ve been in love with you from the moment we entered each other’s orbit. I’ve wanted nothing more than for you to see everything that I am while enjoying the darkness residing deep within your mind. I’ve wished countless times to shed blood with you, make a family of our own together, living as gods amongst the earth. Above the trivialities of human morali-“

Hannibal is cut off by warm and soft lips connecting with his own. Will’s lips desperately moving against Hannibal’s. Years of emotions pouring outwards. The torrential downfall is all consuming. They kiss ravenously, eager to enjoy what had been so long promised to them.

Jigsaw pieces fall into place at once, the infectious mind games fade into nothing. Their shared past grievances but a thing of the past for Will as he opens his lips to the feeling of Hannibal’s tongue tracing his lower lip. None of it matters at this point. Far too much bloodshed happened for this to come to pass. The bright mirror separating them shatters to bits and pieces within the confines of their physical connection. Metaphysically their connection reshapes thorns and twines rewound tightly together.

They pull apart briefly the space between their lips near nonexistent; each harsh breath causes their lips to brush against each other anew.

“You must understand Will, that blood and breath are only elements undergoing change to fuel your radiance. Everything that I have done for you has been for this one moment we find ourselves in now. I have nothing left to keep from you… You vile creature who has plundered deep into the confines of my chest… If you ever leave me again, Will. I will kill you.” Hannibal’s words are poison, a hinted trace of their previous lives peeking through.

The thought sends Will into a fury. He’d been prepared to leave everything behind in the past.

“Hannibal, man of great and infinite pleasures, material and otherwise; Guilty of many sins but abundantly gluttony. Image of harsh humanity and mighty masculinity, devourer of human flesh and social constructs. To think you’d fall so irreversibly, to think I have you wrapped by collar and leash emblazoned with the rose petals of your passion… To think the almighty Chesapeake Ripper is near incapacitated with the cadences and predispositions of emotion, all for a man like me? How does that make you feel Dr. Lecter?” Will’s words carry fire and furry.

For but a moment Hannibal is resolutely stunned to silence. 

And then something quite strange happens. Will’s fury is slowly replaced with a rapt fascination.

Hannibal tilts his head back and lets out a rather loud laugh; the time he’s spent craned over Will causes his arms to wilt. Hannibal gracelessly collapses on top of Will, their bodies connected completely. Despite the quick fading anger, Will finds himself enjoying their shared warmth and proximity. Hannibal’s chest shakes for quite some time, harsh breaths cascading down the crux of Will’s neck.

“Did I miss something?” Will grits back a grin of his own, unwilling to grace Hannibal with any semblance of forgiveness.

“Forgive me; your words struck such a strange chord of affection. To think that you had such a vicious retort after I just bared my heart to you struck a thought. You have and always will have my heart Will. You are cunning, I find myself insurmountably relieved to find that despite everything you may have seen in that seemingly open abyss you are just as tenacious as ever. You truly are no longer the Will Graham I met in Quantico all those years ago. I find myself yearning for the fire building within you. My humor may have been misplaced.” Hannibal presses small kisses to the side of Will’s neck, who in turn lets out a harsh gasp.

“I wasn’t aware of the fact that you even had a sensible sense of humor…” Will’s cheeks are rosy, flush with the whirlwind of feelings wreaking havoc in his mind. “You are predictable yet somehow unpredictable at the same time.” 

“I could say the same applies to you in that case.” Hannibal’s voice is smug against the wind whipping around them. Their shared heat staves off the need to seek shelter for now.

“You are infuriating Hannibal Lecter. You seem to find new ways to crawl underneath my skin every time I see you.” Will huffs exasperated.

“Despite that… I have fallen madly in love with you…” Will whispers quietly.

Despite everything that they had been through, one thing was true; this would be a new begging for the pair and any trivialities they face along the way. Deposited into a new land with no record of them previously the pair was free to do as they please. They would, for years to come. Eventually, the two would settle into their own place, adopt dogs of their own.

They would learn to leave the ghosts of the past far behind as they were always meant to do much sooner. There is nothing that they could do but find the strength to move on. Eventually, in life I’m sure they moved into a grand house, built with the chambers once deep below the bowels of Hannibal’s old home in Baltimore. They would never be able to completely satiate their craving for violence, but with a united goal in mind, the two would most likely keep such activities for the next poor unfortunate soul that happened to stumble across the pair. 

They would live through life’s thick and thins together united as they had always been destined to do. With no further manipulation needed. Except for perhaps the manipulation that would inevitably occur upon debating the number of dogs allowed in their new shared home. 

Eventually, further manipulation would definitely occur upon choosing the perfect wedding suit for Will and picking out their rings, and cake; and where to dispose of the cake decorator’s body. Apparently, the woman was eyeing Will like a piece of eye candy for her own personal enjoyment. Really anything dealing with their wedding seemed to turn Hannibal into a Bridezilla. 

But life would continue on for them, just as fate always intended.  
~~~  
FIN

**Author's Note:**

> This was my baby and I put so much time and effort into this. Please if you enjoyed, let me know, it motivates me to write more and better. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this twisted ass back ass fix it fic lol
> 
> (What the fuck did I write lmao)


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